From November the PSNI will attend mental health calls only where there is a risk to life, a risk of harm or a crime, under the Right Care Right Person policy, while health and mental health bodies warn about capacity.
From the start of November, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) will no longer carry out concern-for-welfare checks unless there is a risk to life, a risk of harm or a crime involved, BBC News NI reports. The public will still phone 999, but calls will be assessed and handlers may pass them on to other emergency services or to health and social care staff. The PSNI told the BBC it responds to roughly 30,000 mental health calls a year, about 80 a day, with a significant proportion coming from health workers.
The policy, known as Right Care Right Person, is being introduced in phases in Northern Ireland and has been in place among some forces in England and Wales since 2023. Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson previously told a Stormont committee that mental health contacts had reached "unprecedented levels", and that only 3% of the thousands of calls about a person potentially in danger were related to crime. Campaigner Charles Little, whose parents-in-law Michael and Marjorie Cawdery were killed in 2017 by a man with paranoid schizophrenia, said the policy may have "saved the day" in that case, adding that a police arrival can be frightening for someone in crisis.
Reaction has been mixed. Dr Ross Irvine of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Northern Ireland said mental health services are at "crisis point", with 30% of posts vacant, and warned that removing the police safety net transfers pressure onto services already struggling. George Hannah of the British Association of Social Workers said members felt the change was too quick and that resources were insufficient. Mental Health Champion Prof Siobhan O'Neill called it an important step forward but said she was disappointed there had not been investment in alternative services to backfill the gap.
